Thursday, 1 August 2013

A Cruise For People Who Don't Like Cruising (Really): True North In Australia

No one on board Australia’s True North is ever a “cruise person.” I certainly wasn’t when I set sail, and neither were the two dozen jolly Australians I was with. No one compared stories about past cruises, good or bad. We talked about climbing trips, diving, and other adventures; we were all low-to-the-ground, physically active, looking for freedom, and obsessed, like everyone these days, with the “authentic.”

My weeklong voyage wended through the gorges of the Kimberley, the wild, rugged coast between Darwin and Broome, in northwestern Australia, one of the world’s last true wildernesses. It’s a place so vast, undeveloped, and scorchingly hot that it’s best explored by sea. These are uncharted waters—literally; at least once during any week he’s on board, Craig Howson, the True North’s gregarious owner, motors a tender down a tributary, wondering aloud what’s down there, then putting on a show by wrestling with a crocodile.